Orlando Shooting: Police Release Terrifying Minute-by-Minute Timeline of Massacre

City officials merge 911 calls to construct incident narrative of events that left 49 people dead at Pulse nightclub on June 12

orlando pulse shooting
Getty Images

Police released an incident narrative of the June 12 events at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, giving more specific details about the deadly mass shooting that left 49 clubgoers dead.

According to the report released Tuesday, the first 911 call was received at 2:02 a.m. ET, with reports of shots fired at the club. What follows is a minute-by-minute description of the massacre, continuing into the morning until the shooter, later identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, is killed by police.

The report merges several 911 calls to construct a harrowing narrative timeline of events, with entries like “[The caller says] vic is losing a lot of blood” at 2:38,” “[The caller says] vic no longer responding” at 2:42, and “Subj is saying that he is a terrorist and has several bombs strapped to him in the downstairs bathroom” at 2:54.

SWAT teams were paged at 2:18 a.m. on the order of Lt. Scott Smith, but weren’t able to breach the club until 5:02. The report says “bad guy down” at 5:17.

According to media reports, during Mateen’s hours-long standoff with police, the gunman searched his name and location on Facebook. He also pledged allegiance to ISIS during a conversation with police. Authorities released a full transcript of the conversation last week, but have since been pressured by media outlets to release more.

The Orlando Sentinel and 24 other media outlets filed a legal complaint demanding access to the 603 calls made to city police and fire departments and the 28 minutes of phone conversation between the killer and Orlando Police crisis negotiators.

The city has filed its own suit to receive instructions from the court as to what documents are releasable to the public. “While the FBI has released transcripts of some of the 911 calls, the City still maintains hundreds of 911 communications that cannot be released until the City receives guidance from the court,” the municipality said on its website.

Comments